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German LGBTQ+ groups have welcomed a new self-declaration law that simplifies procedures for trans and intersex people to have their preferred gender legally recognised by the German state.
The new legislation, passed by cabinet on Wednesday ahead of a Bundestag vote next month, allows people over 18 years of age to change their name and gender, either individually or simultaneously, at a local registry office.
Minors between 14 and 17 can make an application themselves but still require parental consent from their legal guardian — or a family court. Applications from children under 14 must come from the parents or a legal guardian appointed by a family court.
Male or female
Federal justice minister Marco Buschmann said the Bill would end decades of state discrimination against trans people, defined in the Bill as people who do not identify with the gender that was assigned to them at birth. Intersex people are defined as having innate physical characteristics that cannot be clearly classified as exclusively male or female, while non-binary is a self-designation for people who identify as neither male nor female.
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“All people have the right that the state respects their gender identity,” said Mr Buschmann. “And that human right is what this Bill is about.”
Until now, people in Germany seeking to change either their name or registered gender were obliged to secure two independent medical expert opinions, commissioned by a court, that the applicant “does not identify with the birth-assigned sex/gender” and that this is “unlikely to change”.
This procedure, costing on average around €2,000, was criticised as invasive and humiliating by trans people and LGBTQ+ campaigners. It was based on a 1981 law that had repeatedly been declared unconstitutional by Germany’s highest court.
On Wednesday LGBTQ+ groups warned that the latest draft of the Bill before the cabinet still contained problematic provisos. For instance, any changes requested come into effect only three months after the application is filed and cannot be changed again for 12 months.
“The draft law still has an air of mistrust about it ... creating the impression that changing their gender entry is something people do in haste,” said Mara Geri from Germany’s LSVD association, which represents trans people, to the Welt daily. “We hope that we can still achieve changes here.”
On Wednesday some LGBTQ+ campaigners criticised a belated addition to the draft Bill confirming that it makes no change to the right of property owners — from hotels to apartment blocks — to decide who has access to their facilities.
Berlin state government LGBTQ+ commissioner Alfonso Pantisano warned that this could see trans people “left outside the door of clubs, gyms, hotels”.
With the new Bill Germany follows Ireland, where similar rules came into effect in September 2015, as well as Switzerland, Spain, Argentina and Brazil. The Bill has met with firm opposition from Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as well as leading feminists and Nius, an online platform run by a former Bild tabloid editor.
Self-identification
On Tuesday Nius warned its readers that the new self-identification law would result in “a horror of rapes, fraud, endangerment of children”.
German LGBTQ+ groups estimate that about 50,000 trans people are living in Germany and are disproportionately the target of anti-LGBTQ+ violence.
Last year Germany registered 1,005 registered trans and homophobic attacks — nearly three a day — with the real figure likely to be much higher.
In August 2022 a trans person died in hospital after a violent attack at a pride parade in the western German city of Münster.